DLA Piper advises IHG Hotels & Resorts on acquisition of Ruby brand

DLA Piper has advised InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG) on the acquisition of the Ruby hotel brand and related intellectual property for an initial consideration of EUR 110.5 million and potential additional payments of up to EUR 181 million. Ruby is a premium urban lifestyle brand for modern travellers that IHG expects to rapidly expand globally.

Established in 2013, the Ruby brand currently operates 20 hotels (3,483 rooms) in major cities across Europe and has another 10 pipeline hotels (2,235 rooms). There are 9 hotels open in Germany (across Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart), 3 in the UK (London), 3 in Austria (Vienna), 2 in Switzerland (Geneva and Zurich), and 1 in each of Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands. The pipeline hotels are set to open over the next three years across more European cities including Edinburgh, Marseille, Rome and Stockholm.

As IHG’s 20th brand, Ruby will extend IHG’s appeal to modern, lifestyle-focused travelers, and offers hotel owners a cost- efficient and highly adaptable premium hotel concept. Efficiencies for owners are delivered through space- saving designs and a high degree of operational standardisation and automation, including self-service kiosks for speedy check-in.

IHG expects to grow the brand with other hotel owners in Europe and globally. This builds upon IHG’s proven track record of successfully internationalising brands that it has organically developed and acquired. IHG expects to have the Ruby brand ready for development in the US by the end of the year and is targeting the Ruby brand to grow to more than 120 hotels over the next 10 years and accelerate to more than 250 over 20 years across owners globally.

The DLA Piper team around relationship partner Dr Martin Haller (Real Estate) was jointly led by partner Gerald Schumann (Corporate/M&A) and counsel Markus Kotowski (Real Estate/H&L; all Munich).

From Germany, partners Semin O (Antitrust), Dr Burkhard Führmeyer (IP, both Frankfurt), counsel Dr Enno Ahlenstiel (Antitrust, Cologne), Dr Christoph Dachner (Corporate/M&A, Munich), senior associates Thomas Herbst (Real Estate, Munich), Ina Fey (Antitrust), Philip Weyand (Regulatory; both Cologne), Dr Anna Rogler, Marisa Machacek (both IP, Frankfurt), associates Angelina Krußig, Julia Ambs (both Real Estate, Munich), Yolanda Ristau and Dr Lukas Reitebuch (both Corporate/M&A, Munich) were involved.

In addition, teams with a total of over 100 lawyers from DLA Piper’s offices in Paris, Vienna, Hong Kong, Budapest, Dublin, Milan, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Leeds, Stockholm and London provided support for the transaction.

The in-house team at IHG was led by Simge Kocabayoglu (Senior Director, Legal Counsel Europe), Gina Esposito (Senior Corporate Counsel) and Ashley Zito (Head of Legal, Global IP & Brands).